


Interlude

by kisahawklin



Series: Variations [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-14
Updated: 2009-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teyla the puddlejumper helps the boys get back to the Pegasus galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

She likes the name Rodney gave her. It is a beautiful name, and it stirs him every time he says it, reminds him of another whom he remembers fondly.

It has been lonely for Rodney. She cannot provide the companionship he seeks, though she does what she can to be sure he is safe and protected. She chooses their shifts carefully, sorting through the shifting realities that bombard her to be sure they will arrive unscathed and whole, and if possible, there is a John Sheppard that Rodney can meet.

When Rodney finally brings one of the John Sheppards to meet her, she vibrates her greeting. Rodney has never felt her as easily as John, not this one nor the last. This one understands instinctively and she is pleased to meet him. She hopes he will be the one to convince Rodney to stop moving, to settle so that he might find peace.

It is not quite what she hopes, but John joins them, and with time, perhaps he will convince Rodney to stop running. John is heavier than Rodney, in pure mass but in mood too. He follows Rodney without reservation, even though she can feel the doubt that weighs heavily on him. She is glad he chose to join them; she hopes he will understand why the choice was necessary before he desires to leave them again.

She chooses a barren Earth for John's first shift, a chance to get him accustomed to her and John and Rodney to each other. Rodney is not pleased, but he doesn't understand yet so he does not blame her. John is able to overcome Rodney's reticence with a subtle insistence that makes her glad Rodney accepted him.

They join in her rear compartment; inelegant and messy, but beautiful all the same.

She chooses different realities now that she must bring two sets of expectations into it. She wonders how long it will be before Rodney notices; she wonders if it will lead him to understand her role in their adventures, or if he will still dismiss her as made up of numbers and circuitry.

She takes them to a reality where Rodney McKay continues to play piano. John Sheppard owns every recording he has ever made; they have never met. John buys every recording he can find, and she is pleased to be able to listen while they are asleep. John and Rodney spend three days trying to get their counterparts to meet - they do, eventually.

The next several shifts are not quite as successful as she had hoped. The first reality is one where Meredith McKay is married to Samuel Carter and John Sheppard is married to Camille Mitchell. Meredith and John are also having an affair. She does not understand the complexities of their relationships, but there is something about the situation that makes both John and Rodney uneasy. They don't interfere with their counterparts and John spends several days downloading music while Rodney tinkers with her inertial dampeners.

The second reality is an error in calculation. She is distracted by a possibility a moment after she has chosen, and her hesitation means she misses the reality she intends to shift to and ends up in one where the Earth is just starting to cool and cannot support human life.

The third reality is also an error in calculation. Concerned about the last miscalculation, she overcompensates and moves a nanosecond too early, landing them in a reality where the Rodney and John are both in Atlantis, happily having their own adventures, utterly unreachable.

This stirs something in John, something wistful and longing that she can't name, and she considers this as she decides on future shifts.

Several more shifts and John's longing starts to keep him awake. He gets up and stares out Earth, spinning slowly, just out of reach. When Rodney wakes from the cold, he joins John and distracts John from his melancholy with quick kisses and promises of more joining; John goes, but his thoughts hang in the air heavily. She begins to formulate a plan.

Rodney is not responsive to her vibrations, but he is responsive to numbers. She sometimes leaves him messages on his computers, simple things that point his thoughts in the directions she wants him to go.

By the time John says, "I want to go to Atlantis," she has already provided them with the means to get there. He must simply trust her to do her share, the way John does.

* * *

John and Rodney spend several shifts planning; she does not choose these shifts carefully, simply moving in whatever moment feels right. Mostly they turn out to be realities where the Sheppard and McKay are already together, or one has died. It doesn't sadden Rodney the way it used to. She is glad again for John, the buffer between Rodney and his desperation.

As she reviews their plan, she sneaks suggestions to Rodney in the data streams. It is her suggestion that reminds him of the protective iris on the stargate, and the need to dial the Earth gate from the control room, and not from her.

This last disheartens Rodney a little. It points up many hurdles that may cause problems if not thought through carefully. She has accounted for all this in the shift itself; she has no way of sharing that with Rodney, so she hums a lullaby to John instead, who pulls Rodney to their shared bed and rocks him to sleep.

The next morning, John and Rodney stare out at the Earth and watch, as much as they can, when she slides into the slipstream of realities. There are millions, _billions_ within her grasp, and she sings to them, listening for the returning hum of a Stargate not buried under rock and dirt.

It hails her, bright and sharp in its call. It will be dangerous - this world is one where Ra never left; the stargate is his, and it will take courage for John and Rodney to complete their tasks.

They blink in the lingering brightness of the shift; looking down at Earth, it doesn't look that different to their eyes. They will know the difference soon enough.

"Let's just go take a look," John argues, and Rodney is still unable to resist him, though it has been months. She leads them easily to Ra's stronghold, and it takes only an overview of the structures for Rodney to understand.

He is angry, as she is, to see children of the Ancients enslaved. She prods John to cloak her, and she has to prevent him from firing upon the pyramids once Rodney explains what has happened in this world.

Rodney is the most perceptive human she has met, in his strangely unresponsive way. He is both creative and intuitive in his grasp of the nature of the universe. He holds much flawed knowledge, but he has the ability to think around that to come to a satisfactory comprehension. She guides him to the understanding that this gate has the power to get to Pegasus; he sees the conduits of energy and realizes what it means, and he will spend the next three days with her, humming quietly and making impossible leaps of reasoning that will get them all home.

John will spend the next three days stealing into Ra's compound; inciting the slaves to rise up against their masters, telling them to bury the gate and free themselves from the Goa'uld's tyrannical rule. They are almost ready when he bids them farewell, explaining they should use the distraction he provides as catalyst to their revolution.

A single charge to the top of a pyramid brings Ra's ship in close enough for them to attack. She and John work as one mind, releasing her full complement before dialing the gate to the Pegasus galaxy. The last thing she senses before they dematerialize is Ra's ship burning in the sand and the slaves standing up to the Jaffa that guard them. She wishes them good luck and good wind.

She glides into the empty amphitheater with a buzzing feeling of _home home home_, and she knows John can feel it as strongly as she does. Rodney, too, feels relief and happiness, though his is tainted with melancholy at the absence of friends.

They have seven hours before the next shift, and she nudges John to her resting place so she can replenish her power and munitions. John and Rodney work quickly, of one mind, and she focuses her energy on augmenting Rodney's search of the database.

There is not much that they can take away from the dormant city; Rodney sees that Elizabeth is still in stasis here, so he resets some of the power parameters to give her a few more years. She knows they will come, but it is impossible to tell when.

With an hour left before the shift, they leave the city and go to Athos. There is not time to meet her namesake in this reality, but in the next shift, she will take care to choose a reality where they can contact her. It will be good to have an ally.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, [](http://meansgirl.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**meansgirl**](http://meansgirl.dreamwidth.org/) for help in figuring out what this was supposed to be and that there's going to be another part.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Just Once More](https://archiveofourown.org/works/89980) by [silverraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverraven/pseuds/silverraven)




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